Prior Art Record Registry · Copyright policy

Copyright policy and DMCA notices

The Prior Art Record Registry publishes technical disclosures submitted by the public. We respect intellectual property rights and respond to properly submitted notices of claimed infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512.

Designated agent

Submitting a notice of claimed infringement

To be effective under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3), your written notice to the agent above must include substantially the following:

1. A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner, or a person authorized to act on the owner's behalf.
2. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed.
3. Identification of the material claimed to be infringing, with enough detail to locate it. The record's REMID and page URL are the fastest way to do this.
4. Your contact information: address, telephone number, and email address.
5. A statement that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
6. A statement, made under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the owner's behalf.

Please be aware that under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), a person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material is infringing may be liable for damages, including costs and attorneys' fees.

What withdrawal does and does not do

When we remove content in response to a valid notice, the published disclosure text is deleted from this registry. The record's identifier, cryptographic hashes, timestamp, and position in the append-only ledger chain are retained and remain publicly visible, marked as withdrawn.

This is a deliberate design constraint, not a refusal to act. The ledger is a hash chain: altering or deleting an entry would invalidate every subsequent entry and destroy the integrity of unrelated third parties' records. The retained hash is a one-way digest from which the original content cannot be reconstructed. Copies captured by independent web archives before removal are outside this registry's control.

Counter-notification

If you believe your material was removed by mistake or misidentification, you may send a counter-notice to the agent above including: your signature; identification of the removed material and its location before removal; a statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good faith belief the material was removed as a result of mistake or misidentification; your name, address, and telephone number; and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for your judicial district (or, if outside the United States, any judicial district in which we may be found) and will accept service of process from the complaining party.

Repeat infringer policy

We terminate access for repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances. Because this registry requires no account, enforcement is applied to submission sources: addresses associated with multiple substantiated infringement notices are blocked from creating new records, and previously published content from those sources may be withdrawn.

Other complaints

For non-copyright concerns — spam, personal data, trade secrets disclosed without authorization, or other abuse — use the report link on any record page, or write to the address above. Those reports are reviewed under the acceptable-use terms.

This page describes this registry's notice-and-takedown procedure. It is not legal advice, and nothing here waives any right or defense of the service provider.